


Weli

by aries_taurus



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Friendship, Gen, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aries_taurus/pseuds/aries_taurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weli - Terror.</p><p>It’s like sitting in the back of the car and seeing the crash coming but being powerless to stop it.</p><p>Danny, post cave bunker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weli

**Author's Note:**

> Warming: panic attack ahead, so if reading about one is bad for you, don't read. Seriously. I know what this is like.
> 
> So, let me try and make you feel it too...

This isn’t happening. Not now. It can’t. it _can’t_. Not here, not now. Not… ever. He. Doesn’t. Want it. To. Happen.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t.

It all feels too raw, too close, the whole world grating and harsh and too much, like it’s flaying the skin off him, everything too much. Too close. Intrusive, blinding. Terrifying. Suffocating.

He can’t breathe.

He’s trying hard to not give in but he’s losing the fight.

Calm. Quiet. Open.

_Think!_

He gulps in a breath and another and he forces himself to hold the second one in, resting his forehead on the wall, eyes closed. Wide open spaces. Bright. Free.

He’s not scared. He knows what’s happening, what he can do to stop it but somehow today, right now, nothing’s working and he can’t. Except that he is. Scared. _Terrified._

_He can’t._

Can’t do this, can’t let it happen, can’t… _breathe._ He feels the sweat rolling down his face but he feels cold, freezing. Like, like he’s…

_Dark. Damp. Cold. Wet._

_Trapped._

It’s like sitting in the back of the car and seeing the crash coming but being powerless to stop it.

He realizes he’s tapping his foot, a sharp staccato he can’t control, any more than he can control his breathing, it seems. He’s gulping in breath after breath yet his chest feels tight and crushed. Like the walls are closing in, like he’s trapped, like, like…

Images of rats and mazes flood his mind and he gasps, a flood of adrenaline submerging him. His heart stutters and gallops.

“Hey Danny, I know you said you had stuff to take care of but could you j… Danny? You okay? Danny?”

He can’t. He _can’t._

He turns around and his hands fly up and he just _screams._

“NO! I can’t, I can’t, okay? I said I needed a fucking minute and I can’t and I said I needed time and you and, and and… This is not… Avoiding this is what I was trying to do but I can’t and and and…”

He arches his neck and sucks in as much air as he can, over and over again. He can’t. He’s lost control. He’d felt it coming. He’d tried, he’d tied so _hard_ but fuck, he’s lost control and it’s like a car skidding off the road. He can’t do anything now but wait for the crash. He knows he’s not dying and that if worse comes to worst, he’ll pass out but… It doesn’t matter what he knows because he’s stuck in the back seat and…

The world’s no longer too close and sharp but the only thing that’s left behind is the suffocating terror.

He can’t get away. Dark. Narrow and tight. _Entombed._

His hands are tingling and his vision’s starting to fade as he hyperventilates, the full-blown attack taking hold. Hands touch him and he flinches and fights and flees and his back hits the wall and he’s suddenly truly and really trapped, terrified out of his mind. _Consumed_.

His feet scramble for purchase on the slick floor as he tries to hide, shrink, disappear into the corner, arms wrapped over his head, pulling at his hair. He has to get out of here. He’s… It’s not safe.

He’s _trapped_.

He feels faint, sick to his stomach and like he can’t breathe because someone’s crushing his chest, suffocating him and he’s trapped and he can’t get away and…

He heaves in huge breath after huge breath but it’s no use; he can’t get any air and the world’s fading, blackness crawling all over, leaving only his thundering heart pounding in his ears. It feels like he’s dying, the light fading until there’s just blackness and fear, all-consuming terror.

He screams.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

There’s no noise but he knows there are voices, maybe one, he’s not sure. He feels like he’s moving but… He’s not sure.

He blinks a few times and it clears, like he’s coming up from under water. He sees the floor, feels a hand on the back of his neck. Steve’s.

He’s sitting on the cold granite, huddled in the corner behind his desk, head between his pulled up knees, hands dangling by his shoes. His breath is coming in short, uneven puffs and he’s not really sure if he’ll throw up or not. He whimpers, pathetic and still terrified out of his mind.

“Danny? Can you hear me?”

Steve’s voice is soft, calm. He makes his head move, a minuscule nod as he breathes.

“Don’t move, okay? I’ll get you some water. Just stay still. Just keep breathing steady. Okay?”

“Kay,” he huffs, probably too low to be heard.

He breathes and blinks and Steve’s there, crouching on one knee with a little white paper cone of cold water. He lifts his hand to take it but he can’t really feel his fingers.

Somehow, Steve knows, doesn’t let go and helps guide it to his mouth.

He takes a sip and swallows, waits and drinks more.

His stomach settles and sounds sharpen and the world comes back, resets itself to where he’s used to it being, no longer too close or too rough. He can breathe now.

“You back with me?”

He takes a deep, slow breath, exhales and lifts his head up, putting his elbows on his knees. He feels tears drying on his face, his throat raw, possibly from screaming. His head’s pounding. He’s tired.

“Yeah.” He stares at the floor. He feels wiped out, ashamed. Mortified.

Humiliated.

Weak.

“You think you can walk to the car? I’ll drive you home.”

He’s still a little shaky but he’s fine to walk, and to drive. “I’m okay. I can drive myself.” He shouldn’t; not yet. His head aches, he’s still shaking like a leaf and he’s so, so tired… He just wants to run and hide. Badly.

“Humor me.”

“Look-

“Hey, don’t give me that.”

“Steve. Please.”

“You think I’m going to lose the respect I have for you because you had an anxiety attack?”

He closes his eyes, fresh tears wanting to well up. It’s been so _long_. He thought… he thought he was past this.

“Danny. Look at me.”

He just shakes his head. He can’t.

“Hey.”

He can’t hold the almost hysterical sniffle or the tears. It’s always the same. Once it’s over, he’s left a mess, the massive adrenaline dump leaving him shaking and most times in tears. He knows it’s just a result of his brain overloading but…

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Steve says gently, hand massaging the back of his neck.

Danny shakes his head. “No, it’s not okay. You don’t understand. You don’t know what this _feels_ like,” he spits out, anger and sorrow making his voice hoarse. “Hold my hand. A telethon. Don’t tell me you know what this is like because if you did, you wouldn’t have been that cruel!” It began innocently enough but now he’s angry, livid. He’s too tired, nerves too frayed to be nice about it. He wants to leave, turn and stalk away but he’s still shaking like a leaf and the anger isn’t helping.

“I know what it’s like, Danny, okay? I know what it’s like.”

Something in Steve’s tone makes him pause, halts the depressing thoughts and the rising ire like screeching brakes.

He lifts his head and studies his partner’s face and… yeah, okay. Okay maybe. Okay. Steve _knows._

“They didn’t kick you out?” he says, his brain-to-mouth filter apparently shot to hell for values of that apply to him. He still doesn’t feel like himself; disconnected, distant.

Steve gives a humorless grin and chuckle. “They don’t know. You’re right though, I’d be out on my ass if they ever found out.”

“I’m sorry. I –“

“Happened after I got back from Korea. I mean… The first time,” he laughs, but it’s far from funny if the look on his face is an indication. “Right after we met.”

“Yeah?”

“That call… When… Hesse shot my father. It was, uh, older model cell phone, something rugged, resistant. Nobody ever called me on it, ‘cept my dad, you know? So… between the freighter and the hospital and… Anyway. I’m at the grocery store trying to shop one-armed and… That’s when I heard it.”

“Heard what?”

“That ringtone. The one I had on my phone. When Hesse called me.”

Danny nods.

“I flipped out. All I could see was my hand holding a gun with Anton Hesse dying in the sights and knowing I’d just killed my dad and… hearing that shot over the line.... It’s like… I was stuck there, in that moment, hearing the phone ring and seeing what was gonna happen and I couldn’t…”

Steve exhales harshly.  “So I know. Okay? Trust me, I know.”

“One time is not the same.”

“No, it isn’t. Wasn’t one time either. But I still know how it feels, how it felt, enough that I know I never want it to happen again. Which is why I got help. But I still get the flashbacks, sometimes… But I got help.”

Danny gives a watery snicker. “You; telling me to go see a shrink. It’s funny. Really. Been there. Done that. I’ve had this since I was nine, Steven. I’ve dealt with it.  Did the whole therapy thing. It just…” He sighs and heaves in a breath. “No matter how long it’s been and how well I deal, it… Sometimes… I’m still fucking claustrophobic, okay? I manage it, I… But…” He can’t speak again, the sense of failure invading him again, a new flood of tears wetting his cheeks.

He _knows_ it’s the adrenaline letdown making him bawl like this but it’s still damned humiliating and it doesn’t change the way he’s feeling _right now_. God, he’s so tired…

“Sometimes it happens anyway, I get it. But don’t tell me it’s worse than before you got help.”

“I know how to deal with it but it still _happens!”_ he snaps, angry with himself for letting the fear win again. “And if you know how this feels, why the hell did you make fun of me huh?” The anger and the lingering fear start to coalesce into _something_ again and he draws in a shuddering breath.  

“Not again,” he whimpers.

“Tell me what you need, Danny. What do you need, right now?”

His first instinct is to shout and yell to be left alone but it’s the spiral wanting to start again; if he gets agitated, it’ll just start all over again.

“I…” he huffs. “Tell me a story. Talk. Anything. Just… I need…”

“A distraction.”

“Yeah.”

He focuses on Steve’s voice, listen to the drone of words, pictures them flowing like a river into the ocean.

“That’s what I was trying to do.”

“Huh?” he says stupidly, the flow of words just now coalescing back into something coherent.

“The hand-holding. The telethon crack. I was trying to piss you off. Distract you.”

“So I’d focus on you, not the… cave-bunker-deathtrap thing.”

“Yeah.”

He nods slowly, too tired to do anything else.

“Let me drive you home. Get some sleep?”

“Okay. What… where are you headed?”

“Pearl. Didn’t get the chance to pay my respects properly.”

“Okay. I’’ll just…” he sighs, still feeling lost.

“Next time, I’ll hold your hand.”

He chuckles. He laughs. Yeah, okay. It’s all good. It’s not perfect but it’s all good.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I hope I did these emotions and feelings justice. Let me know. Mistakes are my own


End file.
